Green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication was one of two themes at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 (or Rio+20).
Negotiations on green economy in the lead up to Rio+20 were challenging and the concept became a source of controversy and disagreement. Despite these challenges, governments agreed at Rio+20 to frame the green economy as an important tool for sustainable development; one that is inclusive and can drive economic growth, employment, and poverty eradication, whilst maintaining the healthy functioning of the Earth’s ecosystems. Importantly, the outcome document also recognises that capacity building, information exchange and experience sharing will be critical for implementing green economy policies. In this context, the document invites the UN to work with partners to provide support to developing countries and to develop toolboxes, best practices, methodologies and models to aid green economy policy design and implementation.
This publication aims to explore the range of policy measures that have been proposed under the ‘green economy’ label by experts and practitioners in recent publications as well as by several governments in recent national planning documents. Through this review, a ‘typology’ of green economy policies is developed and used to identify the most common policy measures that are being proposed by experts and adopted by governments. It also provides a guide to some recent elaborations of a green economy policy ‘toolkit’. The focus of the paper then turns to analysing ten recent green economy, green growth and low emission development strategies. These ten strategies concern the following countries: Cambodia, Ethiopia, France, Grenada, Guyana, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.